the one phone call you should consider making if you are a serious job hunter. in today's cover story, delay at the gate: what to expect at the airport as sequester budget gets get off the ground. and, apple earnings out today. why traders and investors are bracing for the worst. plus, why facebook could soon forever change the lives of people living in a town in iowa. first business starts now. you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas. good morning. it's tuesday, april 23rd. i'm angela miles. in today's first look: the apple of the market's eye: the tech giant reports earnings after the close. the stock rallied monday along with the broader market. gold cruised

$30 higher in the session, while oil had a smooth ride up 80 cents. netflix reels in viewers & investors: the online film company posted better-than- expected earnings, added more than 2 million subscribers, and shares traded up to $207 following the news after the close. netflix stock is up 88% since january 1st. and more information is likely to emerge today after canadian police say they arrested two men monday for allegedly attempting to derail a passenger train traveling between new york and canada. tony harris of performance trust investment advisors joins us now with a look at what's moving the bond market. good morning to you tony. - good morning angie. - i am wondering if you saw any fallout at all in the bond market that was tied to what was happening with the bomb situation in boston, especially that manhunt on friday. what do you think? - actually, as you may recall,

on monday, when it actually happened, the markets were already experiencing a lot of volatility. you had the soft gdp numbers out of china, and you had the commodities falling precipitously, you had equities falling off, and you had a lot of volatility. so when the bombing occurred, really, that just kind of pronounced all of what was already happening. but actually, the market's normalized within two to three days, and it has really been fairly normal since then. - add to that, some weak housing numbers came in yesterday. - yeah, yesterday, it was interesting, because treasuries were set to open fairly soft and equities very strong, but then the existing home sales came out. the market was anticipating 5 million even, it came out at 4.92 million. that was actually a fall month-over- month, so that surprized the market. treasuries rallied to about a 168 yield, and equities gave a lot of their early gains back. - there was also a shift in gold buying, tony. - that's right. you have seen a lot of outflows out of gold. you have heard a lot about the great rotation out of equities and into bonds. what we are really seeing is, you certainly saw some decent inflows into

equities early in the year. those have actually been starting to slow significantly. you are seeing consistent inflows into bonds month-over- month, and really where you are seeing the outflows are the commodity markets as well as the money market mutual funds. - good to have you on the show this morning. have a good trading day. - ok. thank you very much. the federal aviation administration began furloughs of air traffic controllers in accordance with budget cuts as a result of sequestration. each air traffic controller will lose a day of work every other week, and as our cover story explains, that's enough to cause a ripple effect for passengers. the faa reported the first day of furloughs resulted in delays of more than three hours on arrivals at los angeles - less than that at other airports. "i was delayed from laguardia. we were on the ground for about an hour. they made it up in the air, but we were delayed today." but delays in chicago were spotty, though passengers were bracing for them. "we had a business meeting this morning that we pushed back back an hour but it was smooth sailing from austin."

- will you make an adjustment on future flights? "no, i think it's a more scare tactic than anything else." others got that same sense. oklahoma senator tom coburn called the furloughs "a dangerous political stunt," saying that more than $100 million could be saved by using fewer consultants, supplies and less travel, and pointed to the transportation security administration, which has managed to avoid furloughs. "being a flight attendant and working as a flight attendant, i care about safety, and when you cut people out of the tower, that's safety." as of now, the furloughs mean all 47,000 faa employees, including 15 controllers, will work one less day every other week. faa administrator michael huerta found no other way to cut $637 million as required by the sequester. the faa implies that with fewer controllers on duty, planes will have to take off and land less frequently. it's not only passengers

affected. sequestration may also affect air freight. the aerospace industries association predicts over the course of a year the nation's air cargo system may be as much as two billion pounds of goods lighter as a result of fewer cargo flights. boeing dreamliners may be heading for the skies, possibly as early as next week. the 787s have been grounded since january because a couple of lithium ion batteries on board caught on fire. boeing reportedly has engineers and techs working this week to install re-inforced batteries on its jets, which will reduce the risk of overheating. "it took a long time to prove this fix, about 3 weeks longer than boeing thought necessary, so i think they feel pressure now to go ahead, allow these planes back in the air, put this nightmare behind boeing." an update on the boeing fix is expected wednesday, along with the jet-maker's first quarter earnings report.

the debate over immigration reform is already getting heated in washington. lawmakers held a hearing regarding the proposed immigration reforms yesterday. there was a mention of the boston marathon bombings during the immigration debate. "so if you have ways to improve the bill, offer an amendment when we start mark up in may and let's vote on it. i say that particularly those who were pointing to what happened, the terrible tragedy in boston, as, i would say, excuse for not doing a bill or delaying it months or years." "i never said that. i never said that." senator grassley said friday the tragedy in boston highlighted the gaps and loopholes in the current immigration system. concerns addressed yesterday include how legislation could help improve tracking immigrants who overstay visa limits. the legislation was crafted under bipartisan leadership. supporters hope for a vote by summer. the tragedy at the boston marathon is spurring people to

set charitable donation records. more than $1 million has been raised in a matter of days online. because of crowdsourcing, where friends, family and even strangers can donate via personal web pages, it is seen as a new way to directly help victims. it is important that people know where they are donating. the two legit cites are go-fund-me and give-forward. facebook is posting a major status update. the social networking company will reportedly build a 1.4-million- square-foot facility in altoona, iowa. local lawmakers say it will be "the most technologically advanced data center in the world." the 20- acre site will be used as a storage facility - and you thought they kept all that stuff in a cloud. for facebook's vast amount of data, the result of all those status updates and photos, the project has a $1.5- billion price tag. traders and investors are anxiously awaiting earnings from apple. analysts predict the tech company will post earnings of $10.12 per share on sales of $42.6 bllion. anticipation is

high, however, that apple could reveal its first profit decline in 10 years. apple's stock has declined around $300 since last fall. microsoft is the latest focus of activist shareholders. shares of microsoft jumped $1.07 on a cnbc report that activist investor group valueact has taken a $2-billion stake in the company. one of the complaints from the activist group is the stock is little changed from 11 years ago. already this year, apple, jc penney and herbalife have gained the attention of activists. ralph lauren clothing company will pay $1.6 million to settle a bribery scandal. one of its subsidiaries is accused of bribing officials in argentina. according to the the u.s. department of justice, arginentinian customs officials allegedly were given money to clear merchandise. rl stock fell $3 in trading monday. a report out of europe shows the

region is making a dent on its debt. the eurozone's collective deficit decreased in 2012. its most financially strapped countries, including ireland, greece and italy, have trimmed or stabilized deficits, while more secure nations like germany have pulled back on spending. meanwhile, greece, ireland, italy and portugal each still have debt that is higher than a year of the country's economic output. general motors drives up sales in china. the car company sold one million cars in china faster than it ever has before. last year, it took until may 7th before gm sold its one millionth vehicle. the news comes during the shanghai auto show. there are more than one hundred automakers in china. sales growth is exploding, and american car companies are hoping to compete. singapore is a growing "money magnet" for the wealthy. a new report says singapore is on track to replace switzerland as the largest offshore wealth hub. switzerland has $2.8 trillion in assets. $2.1 trillion are from offshore.

singapore has $550 billion in assets under management. nearly $450 billion are from offshore. the numers in singapore are expected to quadruple by 2016. the ceo of caterpillar sees a degree of stability in the global economy. he made the comment on cnbc yesterday. the equipment company, however, turned in disappointing earnings revenue and forecast in its earnings report. a marketing gimmick paid off for hasbro. the toy company reported moderate revenue growth. hasbro had an onlne contest to create a new token for monopoly. the public choose a cat. the company calls the contest "tremendously successful". the conservative koch brothers are reportedly eyeing a big investment in media - specifically, eight tribune company publications, including the chicago tribune, the los angeles times, and the baltimore sun. media ownership is reportedly something the koch brothers have focused on as

part of a long-term plan to shrink the u.s. government and its regulations. a spokeswoman for koch industries says politics has nothing to do with the possible newspaper acquistion. we don't mean to gross you out, but bedbugs are making an aggressive move into hospitals and nursing homes. the national pest management association reports a 6% rise in bedbug extermination at hospitals, while the number has doubled to 46% at nursing homes. hospitals are said to be cracking down on the litte buggers. a recent study shows the leaves of kidney beans can be effective in stopping bedbugs. new york city is considering raising the age requirement to buy cigarettes. under a proposal, smokers would have to be 21 or older to purchase. it would be the highest age requirement among major u.s. cities. new york has ramped up its anti-smoking efforts under the watch of mayor michael bloomberg. still to come, if you're hunting for a job, keep it here for. tips on how to land an interview by making a bold move.

that's later on. but first, bill moller steps in with simple solutions republicans and democrats can both agree on to improve government. that's coming up.

it's so easy to complain about government - about waste and bloat and inefficiency - hey, the loudest voices of criticism are often people in government. politicians, sure, they've got a lot of political solutions, but there is a new book out called "simpler: the future of government," and it kind of takes an apolitical approach on how to fix this bureaucracy of government. it was written by harvard law professor cass sunstein, and you were a former insider with the obama administration as the head of the office of information & regulatory affairs. let me ask you, how do we fix this big, bad, complex thing we call government? - one thing we can do, and we've started to do, and we should do a lot more of, is make it simpler. if you look at the best consumer products now, they are often ipads and tablets, and even a child can use them. they have a lot of complicated ingredients, the people who produce them did a lot of

complex work, but to interact with them is simpler. - you were talking about, we could actually save something like 9 billion hours of time wasted on government paperwork? - the obama administration started to get rid of millions, in fact, tens of millions, in fact, probably we're over a hundred million now. but we can do a lot more to take away those hours, and that can free up people to do their real work and spend time with their families. - is this, in fact happening? because the subtitle of your book, you say it is the future of government. is this ultimately what is going to happen? - i think there are two things: first, the last four years have seen quiet but significant steps in the direction of greater simplification. people are seeing that in lots of domains. kids who were trying to apply for college and get financial aid, small businesses that are trying to get loans, people who have been relieved of formerly burdensome regulations. but a lot more needs to be done. the 21st century should involve a lot more in the way of ease and simplification using the technologies we now have that are really unprecedented to make it much simpler to interact with the government. - sort of taking it from the paper-and-pencil age into the modern i.t. age. it sounds like this would be palatable and

doable no matter what political party you are affiliated with. - absolutely. the steps that the obama administration has taken in the direction of greater simplification, those are ones where the republicans have been highly supportive. we have actually had a democratic and republican consensus in efforts to look back at the existing rules and take away the ones that aren't working or are outmoded. that is a good idea, and people who aren't normally bedfellows are working together. - the book is called "simpler: the future of government." professor sunstein, thank you so much. - thank you so much. it's getting harder to get your foot in the door these days. coming up, some startling advice for job seekers. how to make an impression before the interview. that's next.

job hunting can become a whole lot easier if you know the inside secrets of hiring managers. john lee, ceo of lee core, is here to share what he knows. you have been a hiring manager before. john, what tends to happen when people try to go online to find a job? - what happens, unfortunately angie, is that they fall into this very large funnel of names and applicants, and a lot of them are serial applicants. actually, to be honest, about 65%, the last time i checked the statistics. so, you get lost in the crowd no matter how talented you are. then the keyword algorithm might sift you out even though you are extremely well-suited for the position.

- how should people beat that algorithm? how do they put the certain words on their resume that get picked up and noticed by hiring managers? - funny you should ask. i wrote this book called "forget the resume" principally on the idea of doing two things: one is to get to the right, or the appropriate, hiring manager, and then the other one is to make an impactful, positive image to that individual. - is going online to look for a job enough? - no. absolutely not. i think the bottom line is that you have to take ownership of the process. instead of looking at the job search as a task or an endeavor, the best way, really, is to look at it from a point of view of a product launch. you are the product, and you are launching yourself. how would you get that image across to the hiring manager? - what should you do if you want to make a phone call,

because there are a lot of gatekeepers and screeners out there, and you want to get in touch with the person? - i call the ceo's office of whatever company i am trying to target. - you just call directly to the ceo. - you are really not trying to get ahold of the ceo, that's not the point. you are trying to get to the ceo's admin, so that she can direct you to the right individual. - thank you. - thank you. coming up, is it time to shy away from microsoft now that shareholder activists are taking a large stake? we will be right back.

matt shapiro, president of mws capital, joins us now to talk about earnings and more. good morning to you, matt. - good morning angie.

- i would love to get your take on the microsoft situation. we mentioned it earlier, the value act is moving in on this stock. do you own this stock? - you know, i don't own much microsoft anymore. it was the last of the big tech titans that i got out of my portfolios first quarter. but, it had a pretty decent earnings report last week, and of course the news that an activist investor has taken a stake trying to, of course, extract more money. but it does show you that in a sense, the franchise is in a slow decline, and that's when activist investors get into the mix. that said though, the stock, at $31, has done really well, and is up 10% since i sold it actually. - and what about earnings? what's your view there? - earnings this quarter so far are pretty decent. this is the first quarter where earnings are expected to be slightly lower. 72% of companies are beating, but only about half on revenues. and there have been some misses here and there: bank of america, ibm, yesterday caterpillar had a downbeat earnings report, but the stock did bounce off that news. so, i think investors are actually looking forward a little bit past this slower earnings season. and, you know, last week was the first week that the

market got roughed up a little bit, so i think some people who haven't gotten in are making that decision to take a look at some companies going forward this week, and of course, the market did well yesterday. - thanks a lot for your time today, matt. good to have you on the show. - thanks a lot. that's a wrap for now. coming up tomorrow, don't miss this: the filmmaker from the documentary "the queen of versailles" will be here. the film is about a billionaire couple who set out to build a copycat version of the actual palace of versailles. we hope you will join us. from all of us at first business, thanks for watching.